See the 44 Greatest Atlanta Braves here.
Righthanded Hitting, Righthanded Throwing Outfielder/”Second Baseman”
Seasons With Braves: 1987-1993
Stats With Braves: .262/.326/.466, 147 HR, 480 RBI, 515 RS
Apparently, it’s bad left fielder day. Maybe I should link to Lonnie Smith here. Anyway, I originally had Ron much higher — twelfth, maybe. I decided that I couldn’t sustain that. His career with the Braves is relatively short, five full and two partial seasons. I always liked him more than David Justice, but I’ve come to the decision that Justice has to rank significantly higher. It’s not at all clear that Gant should rank ahead of Klesko.
It was a fascinating career all the same. Ron was drafted out of high school in 1983, in the fourth round. I believe he was exclusively a second baseman in the minors, but I don’t know that for certain. He was a slow bloomer and didn’t really hit much until Durham in 1986. He earned a brief callup in 1987, in which he didn’t do much. In April of 1988, he got what seemed like the permanent call, replacing the dessicated corpse of Damaso Garcia at second base.
He couldn’t really play second. A lot of baseball’s received wisdom about body types is probably hogwash, but I think there’s something to the idea of a second baseman as a little guy, and Ron was on the tall side for a 2B, even though he didn’t have the bodybuilder muscles as yet. His defensive statistics at second aren’t actually too bad, and his range factor is better than the league. However, that is probably the same context thing that made Hubbard’s stats there stand out — the Braves allowed a lot of guys to hit the ball.
Gant could hit the ball himself, including 19 homers, and finished fourth in the rookie of the year balloting. He’d played some third base in 1988 and the plan for 1989 was that he’d play there. It didn’t really work out. He made a bunch of errors, and generally played third base like he does color commentary, but the real problem was that he stopped hitting. On June 18, hitting .172/.233/.309, he was sent all the way down to Sumter and told to become an outfielder. He was called up in September and put in the outfield, though he didn’t hit a whole lot better.
Starting in 1990, Gant was in the lineup in center, and he responded with his best year as a Brave. The attention went mostly to his 30-30 season, but that’s not really a big deal, and his SB success rate in 1990 was only break-even. But he hit .303/.357/.539, which was a big deal, and he and Justice provided the franchise with much-needed hope.
His 1991 numbers aren’t as impressive, but that is largely a matter of batting average, .251/.338/.496, and of course the Braves went from worst to first. Gant started the year in center, but moved to left when Otis Nixon came back from suspension. That was a good thing, because he lacked the instincts for center. Bobby picked Ron for the All-Star team in 1992, but he slumped badly in the second half and much of the time had an OBP below .300, finishing at .259/.321/.415. He had a terrible time in the postseason and Bobby eventually replaced him with Deion Sanders, which is never a good thing.
But Gant rebounded in 1993 for one of his best seasons, hitting .274/.345/.510, with career highs in homers, runs, and RBI. He finished one point behind McGriff and seven behind Justice. The Braves during this season made a decision; able to afford only one of their corner outfielders for the long-term, they chose Justice, while offering Gant arbitration. I was not happy about this. However, Gant then made the Braves look like prophets by going out, falling off of a dirt bike, and breaking his leg.
The Braves released him to save a hit on the arbitration decision (which was at the time, I believe, a record arbitration salary) and he signed a deal with the Reds to rehab. Gant won the Comeback Player of the Year award in 1995 and was a productive player until he was 37.
One interesting thing about Gant is that he scored more runs than he drove in, which is odd because his OBP was usually around the league average. I can’t really explain that…
Off-topic but it sounds like the whole Glavine thing is a pipe dream. The odds are probably above what Mark Bowman has always made it sound, he’s been saying this for months, but I put it at no higher than 20%.
Glavine a distant possibility right now
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061025&content_id=1723230&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Another note:
But with Smoltz, Hudson, Hampton, Chuck James and Kyle Davies, it appears the Braves already have the makings of a formidable starting rotation. They could also choose to keep Ramirez. But in doing so, they’d be denying some funds that could be used to obtain a bigger need — such as a leadoff hitter, setup man, second baseman or left fielder.
This is one of two paragraphs that talks about trading Ramirez (Bowman says Hudson won’t be traded.) He ain’t the greatest pitcher in the world, but I put a heck of a lot more stock in him than Kyle Davies, who the Braves seem to have unlimited and unfounded confidence in. Assuming no trades or signings for starters by the Braves are completed, the Braves cannot afford to start the year with no back up to Davies, it could be another Jorge Sosa (a loss every fifth day), you have to keep Ramirez. I feel much better with Smoltz, Hudson, Hampton, James and Ramirez.
I was always a fan of Ronnie, Him and Blauser and Lemke coming up the system as young infielders in the mid to late 80’s and arms like Glavine and Smoltz and Avery and PSmith coming on up. You can see the pieces being assembled. The big FA of 91 did help :Berenguer and Mike Heath of course I am talking about
Good Job Mac, keep them coming
I really thaought that Ed Whited was going to be all that and a bag of chips at third.
I am also hoping an honerable mention will go to LHP wiz ZANE as a gamer in the 80’s. I still own my replica #34 Smith jersey( true)
I don’t think I rooted harder for anyone to succeed than Ronnie. Good player who played hard and with a positive, earnest demeanor. He was one of those players I always defended to a fault — I’d abandon logic to extol his virtues versus those who argued (rightly) that he was usually not quite All-Star material.
It’s not at all clear that Gant should rank ahead of Klesko.
The platooning of Klesko (or his inability to hit lefties) and the subsequent loss of playing time makes a big difference here. For example, Win Shares gives Gant three seasons better than Klesko’s best. Their final totals (Braves years only) come out to 106-94 Gant. Ronnie was a dynamite base runner which shows up in the runs scored column but not really in any of the advanced metrics.
I would have expected Ronnie to be higher, but then again I haven’t seen the rest of the list so maybe not.
Come on Mac, you include all the no-namers like Justice, Glavine, and Maddux in your list but left out Belliard, Lockhart, and NEON DEION?! You are breaking my heart…
Mac, I agree Ronnie should come higher than Ryan. At least Ronnie was an everyday player.
interesting article about a potential braves FA signing:
here’s the relevant quote:
igawa has nice stats (see here ) but i don’t know how likely we are to sign him.
Gant, Klesko, and the next guy on the list (coming tomorrow) make an odd little group of three guys who had almost nothing in common except being poor outfielders — but who are all bunched in my eccentric little system. I didn’t intend it, it just sort of happened.
Tantalizing! Sounds like there might be a Rooster sighting on the horizon….
Mac,
I want to thank you for this series; it’s making for a real nice discussion. However, I’m wondering why you chose to do more than one per day? I feel like a few potential discussions are being lost in the shuffle. I realized today that I’d missed Wohlers, and I thought I’d been paying attention pretty well.
Colin
The reason is that I have a major paper due in November and I don’t think I’ll have much writing time available after Halloween. In January I’ll start the player previews.
Wait Mac, is NEON DEION actually making this list ahead of Lonnie, Nixon Klesko and Gant?! That’s awesome!!! Make sure you count his Falcons stats as well!!!
Wait, he can’t tackle anyone…
Ronnie nearly stole Francisco Cabrera’s fifteen minutes of fame by almost hitting a grand slam in the 9th against the Pirates in 1992.
He was a good player, but he reminded me of Reggie Sanders-great athlete but he had a big hole on up and in pitches and I think this kept him from being really outstanding. But he played very hard.
Thanks, Mac. I really doappreciate it. Of course, you could write em all now and just copy-and-paste the posts in daily after life gets busy. Either way, it’s making for good offseason discussion.
And wow, I’d forgoten about Gant’s almost-homer in that 9th, thanks for the reminder.
A WARRIOR!! I just absolutely loved Gant, hated to see him leave the Braves, but it was a justifiable decision based on the contract and motorcycle accident. Just always seemed to come thru in that magic ’91 season when he had to, remember the big 9th or 10th inning double against the Dodgers?
For some reason, I had it in my head that the accident with Gant happened after signing with the Red Sox. I have no idea why I thought that.
Gant was another one of my favs. I saw him at Durham and I remember him making a couple of great plays at 3B (while forgetting that he commited about 40 errors).